Dirty Ashtrays and Lonely Motel Rooms

A Story by JessicaRose

a short prose piece originally titled "True North"

"Stay with me," I pleaded. "Just for tonight."

She could never bear to turn her back on me when I needed her. And, oh, how I needed her. She stretched herself along the mattress beside me, her skin setting fire to mine wherever it grazed. Goosebumps broke out from my neck to my knees, as if my skin was instinctively reaching for hers.

She smoothed her palm over my damp forehead. Never once did she complain. Not about my lank hair, nearly dreaded from lack of washing, or my stale breath from too many shots of Jack and a lack of food. Not about the way my grubby hands clung to hers, filthy nails leaving momentary crescent scars on her knuckles. Not about the way I loved her, like a drowning man clinging to a life raft.

She was a silent siren. Something about her had always called to me. As many times as I had tried to move on, move past, it was her my heart always pulled toward. Through all the storms that had tossed me off course, and all the rogue waves that left me stalled and sputtering, she always guided me home. She always was, and always will be, my True North.